


These Eyes of Mine Can Even Find Azure Hiding in the Darkest of Monochrome

by TigressJade



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Color vision, F/M, M/M, Monochrome vision, Police Officer! Maria Hill, Police Officer! Nick Fury, Veteran! Bucky Barnes, Veteran! Steve Rogers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-30
Updated: 2014-11-30
Packaged: 2018-02-27 15:23:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,447
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2697812
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TigressJade/pseuds/TigressJade
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Returned war veteran Bucky Barnes never expected to meet his soul mate, much less have him turn out to be the man who saved his sister from being attacked in a back alley.</p>
            </blockquote>





	These Eyes of Mine Can Even Find Azure Hiding in the Darkest of Monochrome

**Author's Note:**

> The idea for this came after marathoning all the Soul Mate AU's I could find. I just find the concept of them adorable. 
> 
> This little universe follows the golden rule of: "People are born colorblind in full monochrome until they meet their soul mate and make reciprocal eye contact."
> 
> Well, happy reading!

“He makes me think about colors.”

“But does he make you see them?”

Bucky sighed as he listened to his sister Rebecca and Grandmother Barnes have the same argument they’d being having for years. Becca would go out on a date with some guy she met, or her friend met, or her online account told her was available and she’d go meet him hoping that this one would be her soul mate. Then she’d meet him and only to realize that her vision was still monochrome, but she’d get attached anyway and it would take her forever to break up with the guy even though she knew they weren’t right for each other.

It’d been years since Bucky had felt confident enough in himself to go looking for his own soul mate. He’d heard stories about people rejecting their soul mates or those who were vindictive enough to run off once their vision was a flurry with color. They’d gotten what they wanted and now were free to do what they wanted in their now colored world.

Bucky was pretty sure his soul mate would take one look at him and run the other way out of sheer horror than out of any selfish desire to simply use their new found colors. His time in Special Ops hadn’t done him any favors mentally and despite the sleek look of the Stark tech that made up his prosthetic arm, its presence had still been incredibly jarring to his friends, his family, and himself at first. He had no doubt that any man or woman, because his tastes ran both ways wouldn’t you know it, would take one look at him and decide he more work than they’d bargained for.

“But I was so sure he was special” Becca said loudly expressing her disappointment, and jolting Bucky out of his thoughts.

“You’ll know” Grandmother Barnes insisted. “The shades will be there bright as day and you’ll be able to feel the difference.”

Bucky snorted as Becca flounced back to her room to call what’s-his-name.

“Wouldn’t be too sure of that.”

When Clint and Natasha had found each other that time their teams, one of which included Bucky under Natasha’s command, had rendezvoused in Budapest, they’d both seemed a little surprised, but nothing seemed to change physically. Even something like meeting her soul mate hadn’t put Natasha off her game, so he suspected Grandmother Barnes was being a bit too dramatic with her advice giving in the hopes that Becca would stop dating the same type of loser over and over.

“Don’t you look at me that way, James Barnes” his grandmother said. “I haven’t made it this far in life without knowing a thing or two about how it works. Becca isn’t the only one in this house who’ll get what she needs eventually.”

“Depends on whose even looking at this point” Bucky answered raising an incredulous eyebrow “and I don’t even live here anymore, Grandma.”

“You might as well, seeing as how you’re still eating your mother and myself out of house and home” Grandmother Barnes tutted. “I’m beginning to think they didn’t feed you boys nearly enough in the service.”

“Not when the sun out in the desert sees fit to take whatever you’ve got and burn it out of you” Bucky retorted teasingly. “The spiders come by for what’s left in a day or two.”

His grandmother shook her head and waved him off.

“We used to use spider for extra protein back before the war. Don’t tell me you _young-uns_ have taken to wasting good food” she said.

Bucky nearly gagged at the thought of having to eat camel spiders along with his other indigestible rations. He looked up to see a mischievous gleam in his grandmother’s eye and fought the urge to roll his eyes.

“Not those things you didn’t. Some of them were big enough to stick a damned saddle on and ride ‘em” he murmured.

“The mosquitoes were worse” Grandmother Barnes replied. She’d been an army nurse over in the Pacific, a breeding ground for the worst kind of bugs. She knew what she was talking about.

 

* * *

 

Bucky had also secretly been afraid of the day when Becca would find her soul mate, because she was his little sister and he’d always feel the need to protect her. The idea of her actually leaving his mother’s house and going to live with someone else was a point of anxiety, because it meant he’d have to trust someone else to look out for her where he couldn’t. Still, he knew it was better for her to find someone who’d actually care about her best interests, and had worked on forcing himself to accept this inevitability as calmly as possible when it came to pass.

So when Bucky received a call a few weeks later from his sister a little after three telling him that going on that date with Lucas had turned out to be a bad decision and asking him to:

_“Please help this guy Bucky! He jumped right in front of me when they were- they’re going to kill him I just know it!”_

He steeled himself to meet his sister’s match with the amount of gratitude he was due for at least getting Becca out of a bad situation. Even if it shouldn’t have happened to begin with and this definitely wasn’t going to stop Bucky from giving Becca the lecture of a lifetime afterward.

What Bucky didn’t expect to find when he arrived was a tall man, his bearing suggested he was former military, standing in the midst of three broken and bloodied young men. Becca was standing at his side insisting that he let her get him medical attention.

The man wasn’t saying anything, despite Becca’s prodding and Bucky instantly recognized that he’d probably zoned out somewhere along the line while he was beating those thugs into the ground.

Yeah, Bucky had a feeling the man was thousands of miles away right now on some battlefield from months past.

Buck walked over and put a hand on Becca’s shoulder, she turned to look at him. He shook his head and waved her off to the side after giving her a quick once over.

“I’m fine” she insisted. Something Bucky was one hundred percent sure was a lie, but there didn’t appear to be any immediate injuries to her person, so he let it go for now, after telling her to call the police and turned back to her savior.

“Stand down” Bucky whispered gently and after a few seconds the man looked up at him. Once they made eye contact the effect was instantaneous. Colors burst into Bucky’s line of sight from all directions and suddenly his perception was made up of loud unfamiliar shades of every kind.

The man looked equally as shocked and simply stared at him with wide eyes the same color the sky now was, for a few harrowing seconds before his expression broke into a smile.

“I’m Steve” he said holding out a hand. “Steve Rogers.”

“James Buchanan Barnes” Bucky said automatically before coming out of his shocked stupor. “But everyone calls me Bucky.”

Then he smiled.

“Steve, your eyes are blue. They kinda resemble the sky a bit, when you stare like that.”

“So’re yours” Steve replied, “and whose staring? I’m just wondering why your face is all green.”

“ _What?_ ”

Bucky shifted his sleeve up to look frantically at the reflection in his metal arm, only to realize that his skin was actually a pale sheen nearly resembling one of Becca’s bracelets. He snorted, turning his attention back to the man in front of him.

“Are you always this much of a jerk or did you save all your attitude for the day you’d meet me?” Bucky commented raising his eyebrow in a silent challenge.

Steve grinned back.

“Yeah, well that hair makes you look like one of those garage band punks. Going to surprise me with some guy-liner on our first date?” came his reply in retaliation.

“You’re the only punk I see around here. Seems like you were able to keep up with those brats well enough. What’re you like forty?” Bucky teases him.

“I’m twenty-six. What about you?”

Steve’s blue eyes flashed curiously as he said it.

“Twenty-seven” Bucky revealed smile deepening. “Guess we’re not that far off from one another.”

“Guess not. So how would dinner sound?” Steve asked, glancing down and shuffling his feet nervously, and Bucky felt himself softening toward this man a little bit. “Maybe find a place to sit down and talk a few things over.”

He reached out and put his flesh hand around Steve’s shoulders, causing the blond to look up again, unfettered hope flashing in his eyes as an adorable blush dusted over his cheeks.

“Sure. How’s about I pay this time. Since you did manage to keep my kid sister out of trouble for the first time in her life” Bucky told him, winking at him flirtatiously.

“Hey!” Becca yelled back from where she’d been talking quietly into her phone. Then she snapped it shut and started walking back toward their direction. “I’m not the one making googly eyes over there, Bucky.”

Bucky stuck his tongue out at her in response.

“You call the police?”

“They’ll be here in a few.”

“This might take all afternoon” Steve said apologetically. “You okay with getting pizza instead?”

Bucky glanced down at his watch and realized Steve was right. There was no way they were going to beat the dinner crowd to any of the restaurants downtown before the wait time for a table went up by twenty minutes.

“Yeah looks like we’ll have to make due once they let us go.”

“Hey, I never did thank you” Becca said turning to Steve, going up on her tip toes to plant a kiss on his cheek. “Just remember that I saw you first. Even if my stupid brother managed to get in the way.”

Steve chuckles lightly.

“It’s more than that” he admitted, reaching a hand up to rub the back of his neck.

“Dunno if I should tell you, squirt. Might not be old enough yet” Bucky said teasingly.

“Well he certainly isn’t drawn to your intelligence” Becca retorted, shifting a bit as she moved some of her hair back behind her ears, accidentally revealing a bruise in the process.

“Dammit Beck, why didn’t you tell me they hit you?” Bucky growled, sparing a glare for her still unconscious attackers. “That’s red enough to’ve smarted real good.”

“It’s not that bad” Becca replied folding her arms defiantly. Then she realized the implications of what he’d said and looked up at her brother in awe as an excited grin spread across her face.

“Wait’ll I tell Mom!”

“Huh?” Bucky looked at her like she’d grown two heads. Then he mentally went over everything he’d said to her and recognized his error too late. “ _Fuck._ ”

“ _Oh._ He’s got you seeing _colors_. Grandma’s going to be _so_ happy. She thought she was going to be long dead before you found anyone who’d take you off our hands.”

“Says the woman with the list of broken hearts as long as my arm” Bucky said, unconsciously tightening his grip around Steve’s shoulders.

Steve hesitantly returned the gesture and, Bucky realized, looking at him for permission and nudging Bucky’s metal arm with his hand. Bucky looked down at his feet and nodded silently hoping that its existence wasn’t some kind of deal breaker. The relief he feels when Steve takes that hand in his grip shifting his arm around Bucky’s waist to pull him closer, is overwhelmingly good.

“You haven’t met my friend Tony” Steve stage whispers to him. “He was the king of one night stands.”

“Um” Bucky gulps. Realizing this may have been an unintended confession. “Did you ever…because it’s okay if you-”

Steve shook his head.

“Not my type. I like ‘em tall, dark and with a jerkish personality.”

Bucky snorted.

“Now who’s the punk.”

He looked over at Becca who’d been surprisingly silent, only to see her avidly texting someone, probably their mother, on her phone.

Sirens blared toward them a minute later as a police car pulled up in front of them.

“Barnes, Rogers, what the hell are you doing on my streets?” Lieutenant Fury asked. “Heard you got your asses into enough trouble overseas. These jackasses wouldn’t be able to handle one of you, never mind both. So what gives?”

Fury’s partner, Maria Hill was already cuffing the unconscious perpetrators and hauling them into the back of the squad car.

When they finally finished telling their story to Fury and Hill, they were asked to accompany them down to the station. By the time the three of them were able to leave it was well past five o’clock at night. They invited Steve home and ordered a pizza.

Steve insisted on going with Bucky to pick it up, much to the amusement of Becca and Grandmother Barnes. Bucky’s mother was too busy sending up silent prayers to the almighty for her formerly hopeless son, to pay attention to what else was going on. Mr. Barnes had a similar reaction when he got home later that night.

Bucky rolled his eyes and later on decided that dealing with his family’s drama was well worth the enthusiastic first kiss Steve had given him a few moments later outside the neighborhood pizza place.

Though if you asked Steve in the months to come, he’d’ve said his favorite moment of their first year together came when he finally got to draw Bucky naked and in color.

His least favorite was when Tony insisted on meeting, critiquing, and mercilessly mocking the one who “swept Cap off those goody-two shoes of his”. (While Bucky was just incredibly surprised at first, since Tony was actually Tony Stark, the same person who’d made Bucky’s metal arm.) Though Steve considered Tony’s antics a fair trade for the sheen of excitement in Bucky’s eyes when Rhodey challenged him to a round in Tower’s shooting range.

It was worth it to see Bucky feeling more and more comfortable with the prosthetic arm as a part of himself. Especially when Bucky’s mere presence had been enough to calm some of Steve’s more violent nightmares in the just a few months’ time.

Well that and Bucky wound up bringing his friends Clint and Natasha, from his days in Special Ops. to one of their monthly hangouts and Natasha kicked Tony’s ass at hand-to-hand, while Steve introduces Bucky to Pepper, as they ignored Tony’s cries for mercy as he tapped out for the eighth time.


End file.
